The Adverb Is Not Your Friend
The adverb is not your friend.
"Adverbs, you will remember ... are words that modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. They're the ones that usually end in -ly. Adverbs, like the passive voice, seem to have been created with the timid writer in mind. ... With adverbs, the writer usually tells us he or she is afraid he/she isn't expressing himself/herself clearly, that he or she is not getting the point or the picture across.
Every so often I re-read Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. This time around the passage above was the thing that resonated with me the most.